I don't think X3 had the same tone as the first two. It looked right but the tone was gone. It didnt feel like a serious SciFi story about discrimination anymore...all those elements were gone.

I disagree. While there certainly were some... Ratner moments... Magneto's speeches, Logan and Jean in the infirmary, the Angel prologue as well as the rejecting of the cure scenes, and others, I felt all remained very true to Singer's tone, as well as the plotline of the government weaponizing the cure to use on mutants.

I don't think X3 had the same tone as the first two. It looked right but the tone was gone. It didnt feel like a serious SciFi story about discrimination anymore...all those elements were gone.

Much on the contrary, X2 was the one that got rid of the discrimination angle almost entirely and just had it through some incidental references (child sticking out her tongue). X2 game was simply mutants vs bad guy.

X3 recovered the discrimination issue by giving it a twist: society expects to re-define and get rid of mutation through the "cure." The very name of the "cure" is a linguistic trap to define mutation as a disease and we get to see all mutants reacting to it; some of them see it as a chance to be "normal," some of them hate the very concept of it because it makes their condition officially abnormal.

He orchestrated a mutant attack on the President of the United States and got that same President to authorize an attack on a private mutant school. His actions had the President ready to make some sort of declaration about mutants, one that seemingly wasn't going to be positive.

He orchestrated a mutant attack on the President of the United States and got that same President to authorize an attack on a private mutant school. His actions had the President ready to make some sort of declaration about mutants, one that seemingly wasn't going to be positive.

I'd say that's divisive within society on the subject.

Not at all. it was all his personal agenda against mutants.

That president's declaration - much like a lot of things happening in X2, like Wolverine finding out his origin and who he was - was about to happen for more than two hours but it never did in the end. Therefore, society never got to react to it.

President doesn't authorize missions to satisfy personal agendas. He does it because he deems it worthwhile to society and national security.

Also, you think that society wasn't responding to an event - fueled by a mutant - that nearly wiped out all of humanity? There's a reason why the President was in position to make a declaration in the first place.

President doesn't authorize missions to satisfy personal agendas. He does it because he deems it worthwhile to society and national security.

President reacted to an attack to himself. The movie never showed society's reaction to mutants.

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Originally Posted by Nell2ThaIzzay

Also, you think that society wasn't responding to an event - fueled by a mutant - that nearly wiped out all of humanity? There's a reason why the President was in position to make a declaration in the first place.

No, people's reaction to it wasn't shown at all in the movie. And we don't even know if they were aware of mutants (o Stryker) behind it. And we know the president never got to tell them.

It wasn't mutants killing people around the world, but Stryker out of his own personal revenge. That is what the movie was about. Unlike X1 and X3 (well, and XM:FC), where the mutant condition was actually treated in terms of being different to the rest.

It wasn't just personal revenge! It was a crazy person trying to justifying his hatred of an entire race because of a personal issue. He was the most hardcore anti mutant racist we have seen in any of the x-films...

Stryker sent his son to Xavier to be 'cured' or 'fixed', he was already anti-mutant before his wife died. But after that it sent him over the edge. He was experimenting on mutants and using them as slaves. He hated their existence and was about to commit world wide genocide. If it was only a personal revenge he would have just killed Xavier. X2 showed us someone who discriminated against mutants so much he turned his mutant son into a vegetable to help kill off the rest of the mutant population!

If someone joined the KKK because he was once hurt by a non-white person and it filled him with hatred does that not count as someone who is a racist discriminatory person or just someone looking for personal revenge?

I didn't see discrimination much in X3. Nobody was forcing anyone to take the cure and even so, thats a less worse fate than having your brain explode... X1 had Senator Kelly, X2 had Stryker , Magnetos guard and a little bit of the President. X3 had Warrens father who had no arc and hardly a purpose. It was a forced Discrimination story and you can tell it was forced because he had like 3 minor pointless scenes. And he still loved his son and he wasn't hateful.

It wasn't just personal revenge! It was a crazy person trying to justifying his hatred of an entire race because of a personal issue.

So, you're saying it was personal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Great Mind(s)

He was the most hardcore anti mutant racist we have seen in any of the x-films...

Sure. He was the bad guy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Great Mind(s)

Stryker sent his son to Xavier to be 'cured' or 'fixed', he was already anti-mutant before his wife died. But after that it sent him over the edge. He was experimenting on mutants and using them as slaves. He hated their existence and was about to commit world wide genocide. If it was only a personal revenge he would have just killed Xavier. X2 showed us someone who discriminated against mutants so much he turned his mutant son into a vegetable to help kill off the rest of the mutant population!

If someone joined the KKK because he was once hurt by a non-white person and it filled him with hatred does that not count as someone who is a racist discriminatory person or just someone looking for personal revenge?

Yes, one person, for personal reasons, decided to go against the whole race. It was racist, but the movie was just about his racism, unlike X1 and X3 where discrimination happened at many levels of society.

I'm not even saying it's wrong, but the discussion started when you said that elements about discrimination were gone in X3 and turns out in X2 were present only through Stryker whereas in X3 they were all over the plot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Great Mind(s)

I didn't see discrimination much in X3. Nobody was forcing anyone to take the cure and even so, thats a less worse fate than having your brain explode... X1 had Senator Kelly, X2 had Stryker , Magnetos guard and a little bit of the President. X3 had Warrens father who had no arc and hardly a purpose. It was a forced Discrimination story and you can tell it was forced because he had like 3 minor pointless scenes. And he still loved his son and he wasn't hateful.

So if the government came up with a "cure" for being black, or gay... that wouldn't be considered discriminatory just because it's optional? That was the whole society being discriminatory in an indirect way, which was smart because some people would say that it's okay since nobody's being forced to do anything. But truth is that the very concept of "cure" officially defines mutation as a disease.

And yes, Warren's father was discriminatory because he was afraid of being cast out of his important social circle. It was just one example, but the whole society was reacting to the "cure" idea, which made X3 about discrimination on a broad scale whereas X2 was about one man's issue.

You're right, they were. Even when his parents acted like very open-minded, they were afraid, but it was his brother who was really a mutant hater.

Anyways, X2 had these touches here and there when it's about the whole society, but X3, far from losing them as you suggested, had a much more comprehensive approach to discrimination and tolerance.

...nah. I agree on principal I suppose, but TLS failed in execution. These grand themes you've pointed to were passing glances in a film that mostly squandered every opportunity of an interesting conflict.

Storm, for instance, is as anti-cure as anyone when she hears about the notion, but she immediately forgets about it after her one token "reaction" scene. Seriously, does she even mention it again after that?

Other characters are used purely as avatars for different view-points, with little characterisation outside of that. Angel gets a great introduction only to be ignored throughout. We don't know anything about him, the only weight in his refusal is the audience's inferred opinion that he shouldn't. This is in stark contrast to poor Rogue, forced to represent the other option despite a troubling love-triangle plot that blurs her life changing decision.

X2 may be on a smaller scale, but it bears far more weight regardless. Styker is better developed than any human character in TLS. Hell, Bobby's family leaves more impact too.

...nah. I agree on principal I suppose, but TLS failed in execution. These grand themes you've pointed to were passing glances in a film that mostly squandered every opportunity of an interesting conflict.

Agreed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by henzINNIT

Storm, for instance, is as anti-cure as anyone when she hears about the notion, but she immediately forgets about it after her one token "reaction" scene. Seriously, does she even mention it again after that?

They could/should have had her have a school assembly and explain to them her position and someone like Beast and Rogue's positions who are or at one time would be for it. She could have had a moving moment where she said something like "It is sad that we live in a world that thinks we are a disease that needs cured."

Quote:

Originally Posted by henzINNIT

Other characters are used purely as avatars for different view-points, with little characterisation outside of that. Angel gets a great introduction only to be ignored throughout. We don't know anything about him, the only weight in his refusal is the audience's inferred opinion that he shouldn't. This is in stark contrast to poor Rogue, forced to represent the other option despite a troubling love-triangle plot that blurs her life changing decision.

Yes I found this praticualarly annoying. And besides them did anyone else ever say anything about the cure other than the ones who where "supposed too" Jean doesn't talk about the cure at all (except in a deleted scene using it against Magneto). You would think more mutants would have a stance and stick too it the entire film. Instead everything feels stagnant and underdeveloped.

Quote:

Originally Posted by henzINNIT

X2 may be on a smaller scale, but it bears far more weight regardless. Styker is better developed than any human character in TLS. Hell, Bobby's family leaves more impact too.

Empire magazine recently named Bryan Singer’s “X2: X-Men United” (2003) as the best comic-book flick of all time, followed by “Superman” (1978), “Batman Begins” (2005) and “Spider-Man” (2002).
No mention is made of Singer’s first “X-Men” (2000), which introduced most of the characters and the actors who would play them. This seems an oversight because the sequel is such a natural progression from the first film. What would “Godfather II” be without “The Godfather”? Singer created one flowing, coherent narrative out of two films that might not have blended so naturally.
Unfortunately, Brett Ratner’s “X-Men: The Last Stand” is more like “Godfather III.” Singer’s replacement director has made the characters so cartoonish that they’re barely recognizable. He’s more interested in cheesy plotting and over-the-top action sequences than he is in generating empathy for the people who drive the story. The grace and intelligence Singer brought to the project are missing.
The drawbacks of this third “X-Men” were far from unpredictable. Long before the movie was finished, Singer’s fans were registering a fair amount of trepidation about Ratner, who directed both of Jackie Chan’s action-packed “Rush Hour” movies as well as Nicolas Cage’s “The Family Man.”
Ratner’s films are nothing like Singer’s “X-Men” double bill, which glories in the perversity of the mutant characters created by Stan Lee — especially Magneto (Ian McKellen), a Holocaust survivor who takes a pre-emptive approach to mankind’s follies, and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), a self-healing loner whose claws pop out of his hands.
Magneto is back in the new “X-Men,” violently opposed to the government’s discovery of a cure for mutant behavior. He’s been described as Malcolm X to the Martin Luther King of Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), who opposes the cure but is reluctant to use force. On his side are Wolverine, the weather-controlling Storm (Halle Berry) and the frustrated Rogue (Anna Paquin), who nearly kills with her touch.
However, the mutant cure does tempt Rogue. If she takes it, she won’t be sending her boyfriends into comas anymore. While her infatuation with Wolverine may have turned into friendship, she’s still hot for Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), who can turn a pond into an ice-skating rink with his fingers. Inevitably, he has a showdown with Pyro (Aaron Stanford), who shoots flames from his hands, though it’s a surprisingly prefunctory battle.
Ratner has his hands full introducing several new characters, including the politically savvy blue-furred Beast (Kelsey Grammer), the psychic child Leech (Cameron Bright), the speedy Callisto (Dania Ramirez), the Hulk-like Juggernaut (Vinnie Jones) and the persecuted winged Angel (Ben Foster). Most of them are barely introduced before they’re forgotten.
Notable among the missing is Alan Cumming, whose delightfully geeky would-be assassin, Nightcrawler, was arguably the most interesting character in the second film. But telekinetic Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), who was presumed dead at the end of “X2,” is resurrected by her lover, Cyclops (James Marsden).
Appearing like the Lady of the Lake from the body of water which once seemed to be her permanent resting place, she isn’t very nice to her ex-lover (to put it mildly). Her mild flirtation with Wolverine, which kept them tantalizingly apart in the first two films, has turned into full-blown lust. By film’s end, she’s more tornado than human being. The transformation is depressing.
The script by Simon Kinberg (“Mr. and Mrs. Smith”) and Zak Penn (“Fantastic Four”) tends to vulgarize the characters from the first films, while barely establishing the personalities and motivations of the new additions. (Singer took his “X2” writers, Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris, to work with him on “Superman Returns.”)
Especially disappointing is Angel, who has been heavily promoted as the main attraction in “Last Stand,” though he has only a few scenes. Foster plays him as an adult, who chooses to reject the mutant cure and uses his wings to fly across San Francisco Bay. But Cayden Boyd, cast as the child Angel, is more effective in a childhood flashback in which he tries to cut off his wings to please his conforming father (Michael Murphy).
Grammer doesn’t raise as many expectations, but he’s remarkably colorless, and the same goes for the rest of the newbies. Josef Sommer doesn’t go far with his role as the mildly demagogic American President, who makes the mutants sound like homegrown terrorists, and there’s even less for Oscar nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo (“House of Sand and Fog”) to do as a worried doctor.
Working with a $165 million budget (“X2” cost $110 million), Ratner uses more money to make a lesser film. The overkill of the final scenes, which include Magneto’s transformation of the Golden Gate Bridge into a bridge to Alcatraz, is typical of his spectacle-over-people approach.
“Sometimes you forget when you’re juggling so many characters,” says Singer on the DVD commentary track for “X2.” “They’re all crossing each other’s paths and you’re trying to establish them and make them interesting, humorous, but most importantly believable.’’
He could be offering a critique of “The Last Stand,” which leaves you with little interest in following the franchise further. Aside from killing off several key characters (presumably for good, though Jean’s resurrection makes you wonder) and introducing new mutants who make little impression, Ratner fails at maintaining our interest in the characters who do survive. What has happened to Rogue, who was so vital in the earlier films, and the shape-shifting Mystique (Rebecca Romijn), whose self-transformations were once so clever?
Also on the “X2” commentary track, Singer illustrates specifically how he emphasized believability rather than technology in a scene in which Iceman leaves his parents and brother for the family of mutants: “Instead of having the jet take off and spending the money on that, we just played it in a close-up on [Iceman]. You get more emotion out of it and save about $100,000.”
As a result, Iceman’s separation from his family is one of the most moving moments in the “X-Men” series, and — as Singer points out — one of the most practical on financial basis. You won’t find its equal in “The Last Stand.”